Passive antennas cannot be steered or reconfigured except by physical reorientation and the use of an external antenna tuner to change frequencies. Electrically reconfigurable antenna technology is currently under development. This technology allows a fixed position antenna to electronically steer the radio wave beam in a desired direction and change frequency configuration. One means currently used to reconfigure steerable antennas is optically coupled switches. In the related '188 application, a reconfigurable antenna using low power controlled switching and configuration state techniques is described. In the embodiments described in the '188 application, switches controlling paths in an antenna array are controlled optically via optical drivers. Since the optical drivers are isolated from the electrical switches in the reconfigurable antenna in the '188 application, there is no feedback to confirm that for any given pattern, the array of optically isolated electrical switches have been actuated and are functioning correctly.
For the reasons stated above and for other reasons stated below which will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon reading and understanding the present specification, there is a need in the art for a method of effectively and efficiently testing the functionality or operation of the switches controlled optically via optical drivers in a reconfigurable antenna array.